National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

NFS Form 10-900-a 0MB Approval No. 1024-0018
(M6)
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet
CLEVELAND PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT
WASHINGTON D.C.
Section number 8 Page 17
training from M.I.T. and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He became well
known in New England for his design of college buildings, especially for
Williams and Vassar. Later in partnership with Charles Collens the firm,
Alien and Collens, was recognized for their Gothic Revival churches and were
employed to design the Riverside Church and the Cloisters Museum both j.n New
York.
Gardiner Green Hubbard was also from Boston, but his work drew him to
Washington. Hubbard 1 s foresight in providing financial backing to Alexander
Graham Bell led to the invention of the telephone, and his leadership in
establishing the forerunner of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company
brought about the widespread distribution of telephone services. Hubbard was
also responsible for the founding of the National Geographic Society. Twin
Oaks was the summer gathering spot for the entire Hubbard family including
Alexander Graham Bell who was married to Hubbard's daughter, Mabel.
The entire estate is a local landmark and is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.
TREGARON (prior to 1941 called The Causeway)
In 1912 James Parmelee, an Ohio financeer, built a country house now
known as Tregaron on 20 acres of land which he had purchased from Hubbard's
daughter Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell. Parmelee hired the foremost country
house architect of the period Charles Adams Platt to design the Neo-Georgian
mansion and the extensive landscaped gardens and woodland paths. Platt was
born in New York and became first an etcher, then a painter, thirdly a
landscape designer and eventually an architect. He achieved national
prominence in all these fields. Platt's goal always was that a harmony should
be achieved between the design of the house and its grounds, and Tregaron
exemplifies this successfully.
Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband Ambassador Joseph Davies
bought Tregaron after the death of the Parmelees and made some alterations to
house their extensive Russian collections. Joseph E. Davies was a
lawyer/diplomat who played a vital role in the relations between the Soviet
Union and the United States before and during World War II. Marjorie
Merriweather Post was a prominent patron of the arts well known for her
Russian collections acquired while her husband was Ambassador to the Soviet
Union from 1936-38.
The entire 20 acre Tregaron estate is a D.C. Landmark.
THE HOMESTEAD or "LA QUINTA"
In 1914 the last country house in Cleveland Park was designed by
Frederick Bennett Pyle on five acres of land east of Connecticut Avenue
majestically overlooking Rock Creek Park. Prominent merchant and
philanthropist, David Joseph Kaufman and his wife Clara J. Luchs Kaufman were
the first residents of "The Homestead," as they called it. This house at 2700
Macomb was enlarged and given the appearance of a Georgian Mansion in 1930 by